• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.291-309
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• 1973

Exposure rates due to leakage gamma-rays from operating reactors TRIGA Mark II and III were measured in a horizontal plane by means of scintillation spectrometry using a 3"$\times$3" cylindrical Nal(T1) detector associated with a 400 channel pulse height analyzer under varied conditions of reactor operation. In determining exposure rate due to the leakage gamma-rays at each point of measurement, Moriuchi's spectrum-exposure rate conversion theory was applied instead of using conventional responce matrix method which necessitates very complicated procedures to convert a spectrum into exposure rate. The results show that a basic pattern of "typical" spectrum of the reactor leakage gamma-rays is neither affected by thermal output of the reactor, nor influenced by overall attenuation in radiation intensity. It was indicated that he attenuation of the leakage gamma-rays in air in terms of exposure rate as a whole follows an exponential law, and the total exposure rate due to the leakage gamma-rays at a certain point is nearly proportional to thermal output of the reactor. The complexity in spectrum measured for a movable core reactor, TRIGA Mark III, was analyzed through spectrum resolution, and proper judgement of the leakage gamma-rays in a complex spectrum was discussed.ctrum was discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.190-200
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• 2023

As the field of application of in-situ gamma spectroscopy is diversified, proficiency is required for consistent and accurate analysis. In this study, a program was developed to virtually create gamma energy spectra of artificial nuclides, which are difficult to obtain through actual measurements, for training. The virtual spectrum was created by synthesizing the spectra of the background radiation obtained through actual measurement and the theoretical spectra of the artificial radionuclides obtained by a Monte Carlo simulation. Since the theoretical spectrum can only be obtained for a given geometrical structure, representative major geometries for in-situ measurement (ground surface, concrete wall, radioactive waste drum) and the detectors (HPGe, NaI(Tl), LaBr₃(Ce)) were predetermined. Generated virtual spectra were verified in terms of validity and harmonization by gamma spectrometry and energy calibration. As a result, it was confirmed that the energy calibration results including the peaks of the measured spectrum and the peaks of the theoretical spectrum showed differences of less than 1 keV from the actual energies, and that the calculated radioactivity showed a difference within 20% from the actual inputted radioactivity. The verified data were assembled into a database and a program that can generate a virtual spectrum of desired condition was developed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4684-4692
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• 2022

Radionuclide identification is an important part of the nuclear material identification system. The development of artificial intelligence and machine learning has made nuclide identification rapid and automatic. However, many methods directly use existing deep learning models to analyze the gamma-ray spectrum, which lacks interpretability for researchers. This study proposes an explainable radionuclide identification algorithm based on the convolutional neural network and class activation mapping. This method shows the area of interest of the neural network on the gamma-ray spectrum by generating a class activation map. We analyzed the class activation map of the gamma-ray spectrum of different types, different gross counts, and different signal-to-noise ratios. The results show that the convolutional neural network attempted to learn the relationship between the input gamma-ray spectrum and the nuclide type, and could identify the nuclide based on the photoelectric peak and Compton edge. Furthermore, the results explain why the neural network could identify gamma-ray spectra with low counts and low signal-to-noise ratios. Thus, the findings improve researchers' confidence in the ability of neural networks to identify nuclides and promote the application of artificial intelligence methods in the field of nuclide identification.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.1771-1776
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• 2020

Adverse effects in the measured gamma spectrum caused by radioactive statistical fluctuations, gamma ray scattering, and electronic noise can be reduced by energy spectrum denoising. Wavelet threshold denoising can be used to perform multi-scale and multi-resolution analysis on noisy signals with small root mean square errors and high signal-to-noise ratios. However, in traditional wavelet threshold denoising methods, there are signal oscillations in hard threshold denoising and constant deviations in soft threshold denoising. An improved wavelet threshold calculation method and threshold processing function are proposed in this paper. The improved threshold calculation method takes into account the influence of the number of wavelet decomposition layers and reduces the deviation caused by the inaccuracy of the threshold. The improved threshold processing function can be continuously guided, which solves the discontinuity of the traditional hard threshold function, avoids the constant deviation caused by the traditional soft threshold method. The examples show that the proposed method can accurately denoise and preserves the characteristic signals well in the gamma energy spectrum.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.341-345
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• 2002

Nanoparticles of $Fe_2O_3$ with a mean particle size of 4-30 nm have been prepared by a pulsed wire evaporation method, and its structural and magnetic properties were studied by SQUID magnetometer and Mossbauer spectroscopy. From the main peak intensity of XRD and absorption rate of Mossbauer spectrum, the amounts of $\gamma-Fe_2O_3$ and $\alpha-Fe_2O_3$ in as-prepared sample are about 70% and 30%, respectively. The coercivity (53 Oe) and the saturation magnetization (14 emu/g) are about 20% of those of the bulk $\gamma-Fe_2O_3$. The low value of coercivity and saturation magnetization indicate that the $\gamma-Fe_2O_3$ phase nearly shows the spin glass-like behavior. Analysis of the set of Mossbauer spectrum indicates a distribution of magnetic hyperfine fields due to the particle size distribution yielding 20 nm of average particle size. The magnetic hyperfine parameters are consistent with values reported of bulk $\gamma-Fe_2O_3$ and $alpha-Fe_2O_3$. A quadrupole line on the center of spectrum represents of superparamagnetic phase of $\gamma-Fe_2O_3$ with a mean particle size of 7 nm or below.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2014

Odyssey, one of the NASA's Mars exploration program and SELENE (Kaguya), a Japanese lunar orbiting spacecraft have a payload of Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) for analyzing radioactive chemical elements of the atmosphere and the surface. In these days, gamma-ray spectroscopy with a High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector has been widely used for the activity measurements of natural radionuclides contained in the soil of the Earth. The energy spectra obtained by the HPGe detectors have been generally analyzed by means of the Window Analysis (WA) method. In this method, activity concentrations are determined by using the net counts of energy window around individual peaks. Meanwhile, an alternative method, the so-called Full Spectrum Analysis (FSA) method uses count numbers not only from full-absorption peaks but from the contributions of Compton scattering due to gamma-rays. Consequently, while it takes a substantial time to obtain a statistically significant result in the WA method, the FSA method requires a much shorter time to reach the same level of the statistical significance. This study shows the validation results of FSA method. We have compared the concentration of radioactivity of $^{40}K$, $^{232}Th$ and $^{238}U$ in the soil measured by the WA method and the FSA method, respectively. The gamma-ray spectrum of reference materials (RGU and RGTh, KCl) and soil samples were measured by the 120% HPGe detector with cosmic muon veto detector. According to the comparison result of activity concentrations between the FSA and the WA, we could conclude that FSA method is validated against the WA method. This study implies that the FSA method can be used in a harsh measurement environment, such as the gamma-ray measurement in the Moon, in which the level of statistical significance is usually required in a much shorter data acquisition time than the WA method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.45-49
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• 2007

keV-neutron capture gamma-ray spectrum of $^{197}Au$(natural gold) sample have been measured in neutron energy range from 10 to 90 keV using the 3-MV pelletron accelerator of the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Pulsed keV neutrons were produced from the $^7Li(p,n)^7Be$ reaction by bombarding on the $^7Li$ target with the 1.5-ns bunched proton beam. The incident neutron spectrum on the Au sample was measured by a $^6Li$-glass scintillation detector and TOF method. Capture gamma-rays from Au sample were measured by anti-Compton NaI(TI) spectrometer. Five average neutron energy regions were selected to obtain the neutron capture spectrum. Several gamma-ray peaks in the spectrum were found in the present experiment.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.137-142
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• 2018

Background: Gamma-ray detectors having a thin window of a material with low atomic number can increase the true coincidence summing effects for radionuclides emitting X-rays or gamma-rays. This effect can make efficiency calibration or spectrum analysis more complicated. In this study, a Cu shield was tested as an X-ray filter to neglect the true coincidence summing effect by X-rays and gamma-rays in gamma-ray spectrometry, in order to simplify gamma-ray energy spectrum analysis. Materials and Methods: A Cu shield was designed and applied to an n-type high-purity germanium detector having an $X-{\gamma}$ summing effect during efficiency calibration. This was tested using a commercial, certified mixed gamma-ray source. The feasibility of a Cu shield was evaluated by comparing efficiency calibration results with and without the shield. Results and Discussion: In this study, the thickness of a Cu shield needed to avoid true coincidence summing effects due to $X-{\gamma}$ was tested and determined to be 1 mm, considering the detection efficiency desired for higher energy. As a result, the accuracy of the detection efficiency calibration was improved by more than 13% by reducing $X-{\gamma}$ summing. Conclusion: The $X-{\gamma}$ summing effect should be considered, along with ${\gamma}-{\gamma}$ summing, when a detection efficiency calibration is implemented and appropriate shielding material can be useful for simplifying analysis of the gamma-ray energy spectra.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1998.05b
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• pp.464-469
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• 1998

A coincidence gamma-ray spectroscopy method was applied to reduce the background radioactivity for measuring the activity of radioisotopes in a sample in the presence of environmental natural radioactivity. A HPGe detector was used for the coincident spectrum as a main detector and a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector for gating purposes as an associated detector. For coincidence spectroscopy the whole energy spectrum of associated detector was used instead of gate signals. The coincident events obtained from the gating spectrum was evaluated by a coincidence computer program in this study instead of timing circuit. In this work, the background of detection environment was reduced to factor 100 and peaks to be determined was reduced to factor 30 using the coincidence gamma-ray spectroscopy.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.12-24
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• 2003

For the design and set-up of neutron induced prompt ${\gamma}$-ray spectroscopy system using $^{252}Cf$ neutron source, the effects of shielding and moderator materials have been examined. The $^{252}Cf$ source being used for TLD badge calibration in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute was utilized for this preliminary experiment. The ${\gamma}$-ray background and prompt ${\gamma}$-ray spectrum of the sample containing Cl were measured using HPGe (GMX 60% relative efficiency) located at the inside of the system connected to notebook PC at the outside of the system (about 20 meter distance). The background activities of neutron and ${\gamma}$-rays were measured with neutron survey meter as well as ${\gamma}$-ray survey meters, respectively and the system was designed to minimize the activities. Prompt ${\gamma}$-ray spectrum was measured using ${\gamma}$-${\gamma}$ coincident system for reduce the background and the continuum spectrum. The optimum system was designed and set up using the experimental data obtained.